A condition of the Vacant Building Grant was that applications should be submitted before you can move in, to live in your home. And no works for which you are claiming under the grant can have commenced.

This grant was vital for us to secure if we were going to be able to carry out a full renovation for the critical elements like full re-wiring & plumbing.

So we were over the moon when we got confirmation in December that our application was successful and we  were now free to start the work.  A condition of the Grant is that all works must be completed within a 13 month time-frame.

Our plan was to start the work in April – and originally aiming to have the majority to be completed by August – which as it turned out was pretty optimistic (surprise surprise (:

This gave us a few months living in the house to better understand what needed to be done & how best to design & renovate/restore as well as securing & planning with key trades - primarily Plumbing & Electrics. 

Of our €50k Grant - 20k was being allocated to Electrical, 15k to Plumbing & 15k External Civil work. From what I see online through FB Vacant Building grant group etc, alot of people seem to be over complicating the application process. We found claiming for the highest cost elements only kept the whole process much simpler - minimising invoicing, tax clearance certs etc.    

This had been a working Mill & Farm for almost 200 years and with any rain, became a bit of a mud fest so one of the first jobs we tackled was access & the yard. 

One of the first jobs we took on was access driveway and yard. 

After any heavy rains, yard was like a bad day at an Irish Music Festival - the last thing we needed was mud to be dredged into the house when under renovation & also we really needed easy access for trades & Materials deliveries - so a pretty important job to get done early on.

And where possible we dug out & ducted for Water & Electricity Services to other outbuildings to minimise future disruption & costs

We used a 14mm blue chip stone supplied from a local independent quarry in Kildare ( Toughers Sand & Gravel ) - better rates & service than the bigger guys like Roadstone or Kilsaran. 

Not neccessarily the most obvious job to tackle early on, but without doubt 7 good decision for having done so - really transformed the place 

This work was done in the quieter months leading up to our April start date for the big work on the House itself - Full rewiring & plumbing - or as we called it ''open heart surgery'' . 

Our next blog we'll be covering all the little gems we discovered as we peeled back the layers, like these old papers (Dublin Evening Mail 1940's) under bedroom lino floor.